Covington Blue Sox almost played first game at Wrigley

Cam Miller will tell you April 23 could have been a historic day in baseball for Covington.

In 1913, professional baseball came to Northern Kentucky when the Covington Blue Sox joined the upstart Federal League.

Unfortunately for Covington, whose citizens still were feeling economic woes from the Ohio River flood of March and April 1913, thoughts weren't entirely on baseball. After the successful home opener, crowds quickly dwindled. The Blue Sox would leave Northern Kentucky for Kansas City in late June with the hopes of larger crowds there.

Miller, an area filmmaker finishing up a movie about the Blue Sox, points out that the Kansas City franchise played the first game at brand new Weeghman Park (Wrigley Field) on April 23, 1914 against the Chicago Federals.

The team's record when it departed for Kansas City was 21-20, according to Robert Wiggins' 2009 book, "The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs: The History of an Outlaw Major League, 1914-15." The team, renamed the Packers, ended the season 53-65, he said.

The first-ever Federal League game was played May 3, 1913, between Covington and Cleveland in Cleveland's Luna Park. The game was declared a 6-6 tie after 10 innings because of darkness.

While the Blue Sox played its first games on the road, building crews in Covington hurried to finish Federal Park, which originally was to hold 4,200 but was expanded during construction to seat 6,000.

William Reidlin, president of Covington's Bavarian Brewery, and R.C. Stewart of the Stewart Iron Works, raised $12,500 for the ballpark, where construction started April 16 at Second and Scott streets.

Covington's "twirler" (pitcher) was Walter "Smoke" Justus, eight years beyond his only big-league season with the Detroit Tigers in which he pitched three innings and had an 8.1 earned-run average. On Covington's home opener, he shut out St. Louis 4-0.

Some criticized the playing field's small dimensions – 194 feet from home plate to the wall in right field, 218 to left field and 267 feet to center.

Sporting Life observed the Covington effort was doomed from the start because "No real lover of the game would go out often and see the sport massacred in a band-box. Curiosity would draw the elect once or twice, but there was no chance on the Covington field for real fast play."

At one point, the Kentucky Post printed a letter begging fans to support the team, but to no avail.

For fans of retro fashions, the Blue Sox logo was nothing special – just a line drawing of a batter with the blue initials "BS."